First blue, and now green. Oris has fought the regular impulse to offer a black dial for the Oris Divers Sixty-Five 42mm watch, and instead has launched a new green-dialed version of their handsome vintage-inspired design. Green dial watches are rather uncommon, but Oris has elected for a deep green that they call “oceanic,” a green that could be compared to the greenish glow of an algae bloom or the warm tones of a coastal kelp forest.

Aside from the green dial, this Oris Divers Sixty-Five is identical to the blue dial version announced at Baselworld this past March, a watch that I really like. New vintage watches, as I like to call them, are really hot right now, and Oris is one of the stars among the pack. With successful versions of the theme including their original Divers Sixty-Five, the bronze-cased Carl Brashear limited edition, and the 42mm steel versions, both blue and now green.

Oris can trace their dive watch history back as far as 1965, which was a great time for both scuba diving and dive watch design. The explosion of the sport and its heroes meant a comparable explosion in dive equipment, and while today’s dive watches are mostly style accessories, in the ’60s they were crucial equipment that kept you alive for your next dive.

With an aluminum unidirectional dive bezel, sapphire bubble crystal, a large crown, and a slim case, the Oris Divers Sixty-Five 42mm has the tough purposeful look of a ’60s dive watch but just enough eccentricity to stand out among your casual “tool” divers. With a warm cream color treatment for the Super-LumiNova lume on the applied markers and hands and that saturated dark green dial, like its blue sibling, the Oris Divers Sixty-Five 42mm won’t soon be mistaken for anything else.

The case is 42mm wide in steel, water resistance is 100m with a screw down crown, and timekeeping is managed by way of a Sellita SW 200-1. The caseback is adorned with Oris’ shield emblem and interested parties can pick from one of four mount options, including a black rubber strap, a brown vintage leather strap, a green/black striped NATO-style strap, or a steel bracelet. While I haven’t seen the green/black version, I did get a chance to see the blue/black NATO-style strap for the blue Oris Divers Sixty-Five and it’s a considerable upgrade over your standard $15 NATO, it even includes a rather clever push-button folding clasp (seen here).

Priced from 1,900 CHF on a strap or 2,100 CHF on the steel bracelet, you gotta ask yourself: blue or green? I think both are wonderful uses of their individual colors, warm, saturated, and dark enough to suit both the lume color and the highlighting effects of the heavily domed bubble crystal. The original Oris Divers Sixty-Five 42mm was one of my favorite watches from Basel 2016 and the new green model has a charm all its own. oris.ch